A FIRST FOR FUNGI

Did you know that fungi are more closely related to animals than plants? DNA analysis plus microscopic examination and research on the structure of their cell walls which contain chitin, and how they feed, show this.

Fungi are a Kingdom in their own right, as are monerans, protists (both these are micro-biota), animals and plants. I wrote some notes about lichens last week and how these are dual organisms, or mutualists, with a fungal partner, but that is just a part of this vast Kingdom which also contains smuts, rusts, jelly fungi, toadstools/mushrooms, yeasts and parasitic micro-fungi.

To the great admiration and joy of naturalists, the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew have recently produced a superb web site and associated, lavishly illustrated report on The State of the World’s Fungi which you can access at https://stateoftheworldsfungi.org/. To date, worldwide, scientists have named and classified about 144,000 species and that is increasing at a rate of some 2,000 species annually, but we think science so far only knows about 7% of all the fungal species! The latest best estimate is that there are between 2.2 and 3.8 million fungal species on Earth – that’s six times the number of plant species. Kew has the largest “Fungarium” in the world and holds more than 1.25 million specimens already.

The importance of fungi to us humans has a long history – as food, for fermentation, in contraceptive pills, as critical antibiotics, in the cycling of nutrients, carbon sequestration, prevention of desertification in arid regions, bio-remediation, biofuels and making cheese. Fungi also have a dark side as major pathogens of animals and plants. They are, above all though, a vital and fundamental (and often overlooked) component of the ecosystems that make our biosphere tick. 

The aspects on which Kew research has concentrated include the current state of mycological knowledge, classification, distribution and diversity, economic importance, the greatest disease threats/biosecurity, relationship to climate change and conservation needs. It is a superb web site and the associated downloadable report is a fascinating read and tribute to the Kew scientists led by Director of Science Professor Katherine J. Willis CBE.

Fungi can even be used to tackle pollution. Scientists in Hong Kong have made micro-robots (“microbots”) using fungal spores coated with iron oxide that they can manipulate with an electric field.  They have found that metal pollutants such as lead cling to the microbots which can be removed later. 

An interesting and perhaps worrying observation I have made this year is the virtual absence of micro-fungi that are usually common.  My roses are completely free of black-spot, there is almost no Botrytis cinerea on my geraniums or other plants, and I have seen very few rusts and smuts. Is this just a one-off local phenomenon or another less well-known effect of climate change? One would need to look at objectively measured trends over a wide area for many years to find out, but I don’t recall such a dearth of these organisms.

Betts Ecology recognise the essential role of the Fungus Kingdom in ecology and that the health of our greenspaces depends to a great extent upon their functional biology.  Of course, we notice and record the large, striking fruiting bodies – the brackets on trees and the hundreds of toadstools and mushrooms associated with woodland and grassland that help keep ecosystems balanced and ecosystem services delivered. If any specialist microbiologists with a leaning towards fungi would like to study any of our sites, we would welcome them with open arms but do please ask us first. There is a vast research resource out there!

Photos © Betts Ecology